Case Study #3 > Learning to learn

This Case Study is responding to: Assessing learning and exchanging feedback (A3, V3)

Within our MA* students develop skills in self-critique and deep reflection, and all this necessitates an acceptance of failure, and being vulnerable.

Students have prior educational backgrounds where performing to a consistently ‘high’ standard is expected by their teachers, peers and families. One student from China referred to their high-school as ‘spoon feeding’ for the test, which as Biggs and Tang describe “puts a stranglehold on the students cognitive processes”[1]. Another student with a scholarship from Saudi Aria, has the threat of ‘anything less than a B resulting in a cut to funding’. For different reasons then, they place significant emphasis on the ‘A’ grade. Being critical and reflective feels riskier than being ‘right’.

My reflections and next steps:

Words over letters
I want our students to recognise the value of the feedback over the grade. We can’t remove the grades completely, but we can increase the significance of the written feedback. In the Collaborative Unit this year we are exploring how students co-create feedback for themselves and their peers. Students will receive the same grade for the collaborative project, but they will get tailored personal feedback from their peers on who they were as a collaborator. I have trialled this method previously, and found it to be potentially transformative. One of my students from 2019 told me recently how this feedback changed how they saw themselves, and the confidence gain gave them the impetuous to start their own social enterprise. I want to work alongside digital learning to understand the best integration of this into all aspects of assessment. I am hypothesising that by increasing the quality and plurality of this feedback, we will increase the student’s skills in self-critique and deep reflection.

Learning Outcome roots
After reading two quite different texts, Teaching for quality learning at university[2] and Doubting Learning outcomes[3] I realised we had a huge opportunity to reflect on our assessment practices.

• We tend to ‘norm-reference’ rather than ‘criterion-reference’[4]. Satisfied with a spread of grades (expectation of External Examiner) rather than understanding the grade’s role in orientating a student in their own learning trajectory.
• We give A’s generously to build confidence at the start of the course, but they get a shock when the final grade (the only one externally moderated and used in MA qualification) is lower. If we don’t value the integrity of the grading system, but it still matters in the end, we are doing the students an enormous disservice.
• We also have very opaque learning outcomes. They lack clarity on the singular “appropriate verb”[5] and they also appear to me to confuse the students to the point of paralysis “closing down critical esoteric discourses”[6].

As we approach re-approval, I intend to radically rethink our learning outcomes. I will create a matrix for the full MA learning journey, connecting the intentionality of all units together and visualising for the students what this course is for. I will also make collaborative critique and reflection a more dominant part of assessment, ensuring openness to learn about oneself and others is deeply woven into our culture.

---

^{*MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures (at the risk of sounding repetitive!)
Image credit : The Glove of Deep Observation from a workshop our students with children ran in Feb 2024}

^{[1] Biggs, J. Tang, C. (2022). Teaching for Quality Learning at University 5th Edition. Open University Press. p54.}

[2] _{Biggs, J. Tang, C. (2022) Teaching for Quality Learning at University 5th Edition. Open University Press.}

^{[3] Addison, N.. (2014). Doubting Learning: Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts: from Performativity towards Emergence and Negotiation}

^{[4] Biggs, J. Tang, C. (2022). Teaching for Quality Learning at University 5th Edition. Open University Press. p54.}

^{[5] Biggs, J. Tang, C. (2022). Teaching for Quality Learning at University 5th Edition. Open University Press. p61}

^{[6] Ecclestone, K. (1999). Empowering or ensnaring: the implications of outcomes-based assessment in higher education, Higher Education Quarterly, Vol. 53 No. 1. p. 36}